


Time and Time Again

by grasper



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22721266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grasper/pseuds/grasper
Summary: James and Keith haven't seen each other since the end of high school. James has been enjoying a career as an emergency room doctor when a certain someone has the nerve to show up during his shift.
Relationships: James Griffin/Keith (Voltron)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 61





	Time and Time Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmologier (cowsbark)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowsbark/gifts).



> This fic was written for cosmologier as part of the Jeith Valentine's Day Gift Exchange 2020! I hope you enjoy!

At the beginning of his career as an ED intern, James had all sorts of well laid plans to ensure he maintains a perfectly balanced diet and an optimal seven hours of sleep a night to ensure peak performance. By the end of his first week, he was accruing hours upon hours of sleep debt with caffeine from the doctor’s lounge, pulled in every which direction by the merciless whims of the pager. He’d just barely managed to crawl into one of the beds in the on-call facility of the hospital when the cursed thing started that godawful beeping, setting his nerves jangling along with it. Blearily, he groaned and rubbed at his eyes. 

K.K 25 yo M. MVC. RLE lac. r/o concussion

Grabbing his whitecoat, James walked briskly to the emergency department, scanned the boards for a K.K and room number, then stopped to grab a sticker from their patient chart. It was only after he’d settled at his work station that the name on the sticker actually registered. 

KOGANE, KEITH  
MRN#873291 

Suddenly the fact that he hadn’t managed to get any sleep yet was the last thing that mattered. Kogane, Keith. James read, then re-read the label as though doing so might make the name metamorphose into someone else’s name; the label did him so no such favors.

Shit, he muttered under his breath. He held his ID up to the scanner mounted on the computer and the system logged him in. Though he appeared calm and focused, his thoughts were racing as he booted the lagging EMR and pulled up the trauma team’s notes. Surely there had to be more than one Keith Kogane in the universe. Surely.

25 yo M with no history of medical conditions brought to ED by EMS s/p MVC. Pt reports a brake malfunction occurred while going 70 mph on motorcycle and was thrown to the side when the vehicle skidded. Per EMS, a bystander called for an ambulance despite the pt’s insistence that he was “just fucking fine.”

Groaning, James closed his eyes, all hopes for a mysterious random Keith Kogane’s existence fading fast.

Pt denies any LOC, headache, confusion, changes in vision, numbness or tingling in all extremities. Endorses pain in right lower extremity.

James dragged the cursor over to the imaging tab to pull up a head CT. Ribbons of grey, encased in the sharp white contours of bone loaded on his monitor. James scrolled through the axial cross sections almost mechanically, watching as ventricles appeared and disappeared, and finally he wound up staring at the cross section taken at the level of the orbits.

Then it occurred to him.

He was literally staring into Keith’s eyes.

And when he scrolled back up a few levels, he was staring at the grey whirls and stippling of Keith’s brain. After all these years of wondering just what the hell the class delinquent was thinking, he could now finally say he’d looked inside Keith’s head. The sleep deprived part of him wanted to laugh hysterically, but the part that wanted to look his colleagues in the eye was starting to think he was losing it.

Hemorrhages. He was supposed to be looking for hemorrhages. Signs of cerebral edema. Cerebral herniations. Hydrocephalus. Fractures. Not whatever he was doing right now.

Being stupid. I’m being stupid. And James rather thought he has stopped being stupid quite a long time ago.

He closed out of the CT images, then returned to the surgical team’s medical notes. No doubt, if Keith had been downgraded from a level 1 trauma case to a level 2, there weren’t likely to be any immediately life threatening sequelae to be concerned about, but all the same he’d been blindsided by Keith on more than one occasion; he didn't need another incident to add to the list. With one final glance at the patient’ vitals (tachycardic, normotensive) and hematocrit levels (within normal limits), James allowed himself a final deep sigh and logged off.

Grey curtains had been pulled across the entrance to ED Room 05 and James lingered outside for another moment, hesitant until he became irritated with himself. He’d conducted hundreds of patient examinations. It was all a matter of being methodical and precise topped off with poise and charm. Dr. James Griffin was good at his job, and well-liked by the emergency room attendings. So why exactly did this feel like day one of his third year clerkships?

“I’m coming in.” he said, fingers swiping the curtains aside. A nanosecond too late, he remembered that there was a chance the patient could be indecent and though he wasn’t especially religious he prayed to every single deity that the man inside was, in fact, decent.

As it would turn out, Keith was indeed dressed, looking both unrepentant and comically out of place with his sad little button up patient gown and a C-collar strapped around his neck. It’d have been almost hilarious were it not for the immediate groan that escaped Keith’s lips.

“No. Not you. Anyone but you.”

James shouldn’t have been surprised, but the adrenaline pulsed in his arteries all the same, brow wrinkling with indignation.

“Keith.” His voice was clipped as he leaned forward to extend a handshake that he knew would be ignored. Keith did not disappoint. Sitting up stick straight, he narrowed his eyes.

“Since when the hell were you a whitecoat?”

“Is that supposed to be derogatory?” James raised an eyebrow.

“No. It’s supposed to be a question.”

“Last year. If you have to know.” Only a dedication to professionalism kept James from rolling his eyes as he pulled his arm back. “Graduated top of my year, too, so you’re welcome for the fact that you aren’t going to end up with a huge scar on your leg.”

Not that it’d really matter, James thought bitterly. It didn’t take a medical degree to see that adulthood had been very kind to the bane of his high school career.

Keith, however, who had no such oaths to professionalism to uphold did freely roll his eyes.

“How are you exactly the same? Is this real?”

James laughed and it wasn’t a pretty sound. “Took the question right out of my mouth.” This was already going awry, wasn’t it? Figured Keith wouldn’t even let him get the introductions right.

“Look. I just need to do a physical. Then I can take that collar off, get some stitches in your leg and then we never see each other again. Deal?”

Keith folded his arms then sighed like this was the most unreasonable request he’d ever heard. Keith had done this so often that the memory was practically seared into James’ neurons. It was the same kind of sigh that James had gotten when he had the audacity to ask what the transfer student’s name was all those years ago in middle school. The sigh that Keith gave when Mr. Iverson dared to ask him not to be tardy. It was a sigh that seemed to be hiding a secret that only Keith Kogane was good enough to know.

“Fine. I’m Keith. The date is February 14th and I’m currently at Platt Hospital.”

James blinked.

“Been asked the same stupid questions by three other whitecoats.” Keith shrugged.

“Yeah, because we’re trying to make sure you didn’t hurt your head when you crashed your bike, idiot.”

No sooner than James had said it, his heart skipped a nervous beat. Too far. Much too far. But for whatever unfathomable Keith Kogane reason, it only made him laugh.

“Do you talk to all your patients like this or am I just special?”

“Oh you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” James shot back.

Keith raised an eyebrow and James could feel his own soul leave his body to do the same. Hurriedly, he cleared his throat and walked briskly over towards the counter where boxes of nitrile gloves were stacked. Giving sweaty hands a quick wipe on his coat, he slipped the blue gloves on.

“In any case, duly noted on the bedside manner. I’m tired.”

“And you’re supposed to be stitching up my leg? Great. I’m getting out of here.”

James watched aghast as Keith yanked at his pulse oximeter and ripped off his blood pressure cuff. The monitors behind Keith’s head began flashing the word “ERROR.”

“Keith!” It’d been years since James had yelled his name that way and yet it came to him so naturally. And yet, he didn’t quite know why. Neither the blood pressure cuff nor the oximeter were necessarily indicated at this point, and moreover this wasn’t school. If Keith wanted to leave the hospital against medical advice, that was actually his right to do. For once.

“Keith, damn it, just sit down.”

It didn’t work, of course. Keith slid a leg over the edge of the bed, grimacing.

“Oh I get it, you’re scared of getting stitches.”

Finally, Keith paused and looked up with a glare that made James’ heart giddy with triumph.

“I’m not scared, idiot.”

Emboldened against all reason, James laughed. “You look like a fucking angry cat with a cone on, Keith. Please.”

If looks could kill, James suspected that by now he’d be a dead man. Mercifully, in the years that they hadn’t seen each other, Keith hadn’t acquired that power. It was, truth be told, quite an odd place to be claiming another victory, but it belonged to James now and he wouldn’t be relinquishing it any time soon.

“Just fix my leg, James.”

“As you wish.” James kept the temptation to add a sarcastic little bow in check. Somehow he’d forgotten about this. The way talking to Keith often felt like running full tilt, as free and wild as the wind. Or rather, he didn’t want to remember this part of his interactions with Keith.

“I’m going to take the collar off now.” James’ voice was dry again as his fingers undid the velcro holding the neck brace in place. Keith obviously had no need for it if his rather unorthodox musculoskeletal assessment had proven anything.

Immediately, Keith began rubbing the back of his neck. “Finally,” he grumped.

James simply moved to put the brace to the side.

“Okay, let me see your leg.” It wasn’t something James had ever envisioned himself saying to Keith, though if there were ever going to be a context for it this would be it.

Keith grunted his permission. James began wondering if the laughter had been too much again. He’d always dreaded silence with Keith.

The laceration itself had been well cleaned by the surgical team, though considerably red with inflammation. James stood up to retrieve the lac kit. He ought to take the opportunity to ask further questions about the injury itself -- how it happened, what kind of guardian angels Keith had looking out for him that his injury was so mild all things considered. Ought to. Should.

Won’t.

“Did you even graduate?”

“What?” Keith’s expression shifted to incredulity.

“You were just complaining that everyone keeps asking you the same questions two seconds ago. What do you mean ‘what’?” James shrugged, setting the kit down on the stand along with a pair of sterile gloves. “I just didn’t see you at the ceremony.”

Keith’s eyes stayed on the kit, lips pursed in distaste. “Didn’t think anyone would’ve cared either way.”

“So you just didn’t go.”

Keith let out a disbelieving huff of laughter. “Why? Were you mad that you didn’t have the entire graduating class as a captive audience for your lame speech?”

“No,” James shot back, inexplicably bitter. “Try worried, genius.”

“Worried.” Keith repeated the word as if speaking an alien language.

“You were part of our class. It was the last day we were all going to be gathered at the same place. So what you hated all of our guts, you could have shown us some respect on the last day.”

Keith’s expression was inscrutable for a moment, though James had no way of knowing that as his attention was directed at correctly setting up his sterile field.

“Couple of pinches as I numb up your leg.”

Keith winced as James injected the lidocaine. “You’re weirdly hung up on this, you know.”

James flushed. “Of course you’d think that.” Who was Keith if not someone so wrapped up in his own head that everyone else’s feelings were mere blips on his radar.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I thought you’d gotten into an accident with your bike and only realized you were alive because I saw your picture in a fucking magazine in a waiting room.” James snapped, clipping the stitch onto his needle driver. “NASCAR? Seriously?”

Keith fell silent for a long moment, shoulders tense as the accusation rang in his ears.

James sighed. “Whatever. Just tell me if you need more anesthetic.” His hands were shaking as he held the driver up to Keith’s leg and started to suture the wound closed.

“Before we move forward, we must also take a moment to look back.”

James’ eyebrow shot up. “Excuse me?”

Keith continued, unperturbed. “Let us all take a moment to ask forgiveness from those we have wronged.”

When James only continued to stare, Keith rolled his eyes impatiently. “Your speech, genius. I was late. Principal Sanda told me to just sit in the auditorium.”

“Okay.” It wasn’t okay. It was the farthest thing from okay that James had dealt with in recent memory. “As flattered as I am that you committed anything I said ever to memory, what the actual hell?”

Keith turned his face, scowling at the opposite wall. “Look,” he said, though his body language was practically screaming ‘don’t look.’

“I thought maybe you were talking about me. Figured if you actually meant what you said, you’d say something. Obviously you didn’t. Are you just going to leave that needle in my leg or are you planning on finishing today?”

James flushed, teeth grit as he completed his first stitch.

“I was going to,” he managed in the world’s worst attempt at an even tone. Perhaps Keith had been right to suggest he was hung up on it, but his head was dizzy with the vertigo only Keith so effortlessly induced simply by being there, being himself, being everything James had ever wanted and took too long to realize.

The suturing kept him grounded. When all he had to keep his mind on was a leg with a deep gash and not the person said leg was attached to James could at least feel like a person.

“We should get coffee. Properly catch up.” If the attempt at nonchalance wasn’t going to kill him, then the silence that followed surely would. James held his breath, patient. He’d been pushed away by Keith his whole life, and by now he was certain getting this last rejection would finally close the chapter of his life dedicated to Keith.

“If you’re not scared of that, too.”

“Scared of getting coffee with you?” Keith smiled and James had no idea if he wanted to shake or kiss it off his face.

“Never.”


End file.
